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As one of the most narratively rich and visually impactful genres in cinema, war movies often resonate with viewers through impressive technical design, well-executed action and memorable characters. Moreover, the audience’s engagement through a war film’s complex characters oftentimes heightens the combat elements and the emotional facets. At the same time, the actors who bring these important characters to life do a wonderful job of capturing the narrative’s tone, where many of these stars can refer to similar military experiences.

As one of the most integral and deadly aspects of human history, war demonstrates the harsh realities of humanity and also reveals a sense of duty from the soldiers who aim to fight for a noble cause. In this instance, several Hollywood stars have joined the military, as well as served in war, and upon making the jump to acting, these performers have brought depth to a...

Robert “Bobby” Meyers, a founding member of the American Film Market whose half-century-plus career in indie movies, sales and distribution included stints at Columbia, Lorimar, Orion and Village Roadshow, died Sunday at his New Jersey home. He was 90. AFM producer Independent Film & Television Alliance confirmed the news but did not provide a cause of death.

During a long career that started in 1956, Meyers was behind the release of such notable films as Brian De Palma’s Obsession (1976) and Blow Out (1981), Robert Aldrich’s Burt Lancaster starr Twilight’s Last Gleaming (1977) and Hal Ashby’s Peter Sellers-led classic Being There (1979).

Born on October 3, 1934, Meyers joined Columbia Pictures International during the 1950s, serving in Paris and Brussels and eventually becoming the European sales manager. He later held executive posts at National General Pictures, Lorimar Motion Pictures, Filmways Productions, Orion Pictures and Village Roadshow, playing a pivotal role in international film sales and distribution.

Joseph Wambaugh, whose experience as an LAPD officer enabled him to bring a warts-and-all realism to his novels about policing and the movies and TV shows like “Police Story,” died Friday in Rancho Mirage, Calif. He was 88.

The cause was esophageal cancer, a family friend told the New York Times.

Wambaugh’s work in novels such as “The New Centurions,” “The Blue Knight” “The Choirboys” and best seller “The Onion Field” rendered the flat, idealized portrait of the Los Angeles Police Dept. presented in “Dragnet” and “Adam-12” permanently outdated, and yet cops felt they understood him and got the way they talked, and they remained among his biggest fans over the course of his career as a novelist.

A highlight of Wambaugh’s relationship with Hollywood was the Harold Becker-directed feature “The Onion Field” (1979), with Wambaugh penning the screenplay based on his own true-crime novel. The book had faithfully...

The elaborate heist that kicks into motion early into Dominik Graf’s The Cat effectively douses the steamy sex scene that opens the film with ice cold water. As the well-tanned, brawny Probek (Götz George) stands naked at the window of the low-lit hotel room in which he’s just gotten his rocks off, and from where he’ll orchestrate much of his exacting plan, one can’t help but think of the antiheroes in Michael Mann’s crime films. That’s especially true once Probek dons a shirt and tie and meticulously puts together his assault rifle and sets up his telescope to check out the bank on the other side of the courtyard.

Indeed, Probek is the very image of the sharply dressed, highly professional criminal. And he takes on his duties in a god-like fashion as he serves as the unseen puppet master from above, secretly pulling...

“The id grows tedious,” art critic Jackson Arn wrote recently, “when left to speak too freely.” The Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude keeps his in check by grounding flourishes in pure mundanity. Near the end of Kontinental ’25, an ex-professor, Orsolya (Eszter Tompa), and her former student, Fred (Adonis Tanța), sit by an anti-communist resistance monument in Cluj and watch a horrific video of a drone attack on a Russian soldier. Having found the dead body of a man she evicted earlier that day, Orsolya, who now works as a bailiff, is looking to blow off some steam. They move uphill and Fred––whose delivery bag is plastered with Romanian flags, so as not to be confused with immigrant gig workers––serenades her. Next, they have sex in the bushes. The film up to this point has been awash with ideas and vaguely apocalyptic images: Roman ruins, a robot dog, a dinosaur park,...

In the 1950s, the thriller genre captivated audiences with narratives steeped in Cold War apprehensions, psychological uncertainty, and the stark aesthetics of film noir. This period provided a fertile ground for 1950s thriller movies that often featured shadowy figures and morally ambiguous protagonists (a curious mirror to postwar societal introspection). The medium thrived on suspense that ticked like an old clock in a dimly lit room and on plots replete with unexpected twists that delighted and disturbed in equal measure.

Our exploration today focuses on a carefully picked selection of 50s thriller movies. These classic 50s thrillers are chosen based on critical reception, noticeable cultural impact, and their relentless pursuit of suspense and narrative ingenuity.

We aim to present a list of must-see thriller films from the 50s that continue to spark conversation among cinephiles and casual viewers alike (occasionally sparking a smirk in those who appreciate a subtle irony...

Eric Weissman, the noted Hollywood entertainment lawyer who represented many actors including Gene Wilder, Elizabeth Taylor and Rita Hayworth, died Dec. 15. He was 94.

Weissman’s death was only just now announced by his granddaughter, Sara McCrea.

Over his five decades of experience practicing entertainment law, Weissman also represented directors like Robert Altman, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Aldrich, Paul Mazursky and Mark Rydell. Weissman spent years as a partner at Kaplan, Livingston, Goodwin, Berkowitz, Selvin and the Beverly Hills firm Weissmann Wolff Bergman Coleman Grodin, along with a stint at Warner Bros as the Head of Worldwide Business Affairs.

“Eric was a wonderful attorney, said “Roger Rabbit” creator Gary K. Wolf, a client and friend. “He was also a consummate gentleman, a brilliant raconteur, and a very, very good friend.”

Later in life, Weissman founded his own practice. He taught at schools including the University of Southern California and Sherwood Oaks Experimental College...

Eric Weissmann, the veteran entertainment attorney who repped Rita Hayworth, Robert Altman, Elizabeth Taylor and Gene Wilder in a career that lasted more than five decades, has died. He was 94.

Weissmann died Dec. 15 in Denver of natural causes, his granddaughter Sara McCrea told The Hollywood Reporter.

His clients also included David Carradine and Keith Carradine, Peter Bogdanovich, Robert Aldrich, Paul Mazursky and Mark Rydell.

In 2012, Weissmann founded his own practice after spending many years as a senior partner with the Beverly Hills firm Weissmann Wolff Bergman Coleman Grodin. “I look forward to enjoying the freedom of being on my own and devoting full time to my clients,” he said then.

That move came in the wake of Weissmann Wolff merging with Sacramento-based Weintraub Genshlea Chediak Tobin & Tobin, effectively bringing to an end an entertainment law firm that had been a player in Hollywood since the early 1980s.

Born in Zurich...

Warning: This article discusses topics of racism, violence, and death.

The 1960s is a great era for murder mystery movies. The decade is remembered for several classic movies everyone must watch in their lifetime, and while the earliest murder mystery films are typically from the ‘40s and ‘50s, the subgenre truly blooms in the ‘60s. Plenty of classic 1960s movies were ahead of their time, and to this day, audiences are still enthralled by these old titles.

No murder mystery is the same. Although audiences nowadays are treated to the complex narratives of movies like Knives Out, for example, these ‘60s titles prove that an old-fashioned murder investigation is a timeless concept. From secret villainous protagonists to strained and exhausted detectives, murder mystery movies from the ‘60s are like no other, and they play a significant part in how the titles we see today are formed.

Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte...

Feud: Part 2

We kicked off December with a look at the vastly underseen 2019 gem I See You (listen) before heading to Paris for Joel Schumacher’s 2004 adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera (listen). For our third episode of the month, Trace and I are headed to Louisiana for Robert Aldrich‘s unofficial Hagsploitation sequel, Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

In the film, Bette Davis plays Charlotte, the “mad woman” recluse who purportedly killed her lover John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) with an axe at a party thirty years earlier. In the interim, she’s been shunned by society and she’s on the cusp of eviction so a new highway can be built on her property.

Enter cousin Miriam (Olivia de Havilland), who arrives to help pack, much to the chagrin of Charlotte’s maid, Velma (Agnes Moorhead in an Oscar-nominated performance) and to the delight of Miriam’s former flame,...

Full of hot aria.

After kicking off December with a look at the vastly underseen 2019 gem I See You (listen), we’re heading to Paris to check in with a very, very angry Phantom in Joel Schumacher‘s 2004 adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s musical The Phantom of the Opera.

In The Phantom of the Opera, young soprano Christine Daaé (Emmy Rossum) becomes the obsession of a brooding and disfigured Phantom (Gerard Butler) who lives under the Paris Opera House. When Christine falls for her old friend Raoul (Patrick Wilson), the Phantom hatches a plan to ensure that Christine will never leave his side, ready to murder anyone who gets in his way.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.

Episode 312: The Phantom of the Opera...

It’s no secret that the 1960s gave us some of the finest horror movies ever made. Psycho, Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead, and The Birds are just a few that come to mind, yet in the midst of all those came a psychological horror-thriller in 1962 that has gone on to be regarded as a classic of the genre, despite its campy elements. Now, more than 60 years later, the Academy Award-nominated film is a streaming hit on Tubi that’s being rediscovered by a ton of new viewers.

Per Tubi, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? sits at number five on the streaming platform’s Top 10 list at the time of this writing, sandwiched in between Queen of the Damned and the Robin Williams hit Mrs. Doubtfire. Released on Halloween, 1962, the film stars incomparable actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford as two former child star sisters tormenting one...

Burt Lancaster could be just about anything you needed him to be — except small. He was not towering at 6'1", but he sure made it look that way on screen. Whether smiling or glowering, good natured or pure evil, there was a formidable bearing to Lancaster. But he did not lumber. God no, he was as graceful as a circus acrobat because, well, he was one. How dare a man so sturdy be so damn limber. And golden. And beautiful.

Lancaster's acting career was as remarkable as his absurdly perfect physicality. He made his motion picture debut in a stone-cold classic, and was one of the most popular movie stars on the planet for well over a decade. Lancaster worked too frequently to not slip up on occasion, but he generally exhibited great taste, particularly as a producer. His partnership with Harold Hecht (and later James Hill) yielded three Best...

You never could tell who was going to drop by "Gilligan's Island" during its three-season run in the mid-1960s. Actually, that's not entirely true. Frank Sinatra? He was way too big a name to mess with a silly network sitcom. Lyndon B. Johnson? The Texas lion of a politician did not have the temperament for that type of tomfoolery. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg? Lou Gehrig? The great Iron Horse of the New York Yankees was notoriously camera shy and dead.

For the most part, the famous people who turned up on that uncharted patch of land in the Pacific were then mid-level comedy celebrities like Phil Silvers, Don Rickles, and Larry Storch. Kurt Russell was easily the biggest movie star to ever set foot on the island, but he was just a precocious teenager at that point in his career. Numerous, soon-to-be-well-known character actors did have a penchant for stopping by the show,...

When Quentin Tarantino calls a film one of the greatest of its genre, you pay attention. Ulzana's Raid, the 1972 Western and the third of four films that director Robert Aldrich and movie star Burt Lancaster made together, impressed Tarantino so much that it earned that it earned his praise. "Ulzana's Raid is hands down Aldrichs best film of the seventies, as well as being one of the greatest westerns of the seventies." Tarantino stated, adding "One of the things that makes the movie so remarkable is it isnt just a western; it combines the two genres that Aldrich was most known for, westerns and war films."...

A24’s new horror film “The Front Room” is a wild ride even by the standards of the studio that earlier this year brought us “Maxxine” and “Love Lies Bleeding“; its tale of a young wife (Brandy Norwood) who finds herself locked in spiritual and physical combat with the ailing evil mother-in-law (Kathryn Hunter) who moves into her home veers back and forth between genres and tones with dazzling dexterity. At times a social realist drama about how practical necessity informs life-changing choices (this is every bit as much an economic horror film as the original “Amityville Horror”), at others a hallucinatory nightmare infused with outrageous dark comedy, “The Front Room” encompasses a wide range of emotional effects that don’t typically coexist in the same movie.

According to filmmaking twin brothers Max and Sam Eggers, the approach grew organically from their real life experiences as caretakers for their dying grandfather.

The Oldenburg International Film Festival, often dubbed Germany’s Sundance, will this year pay tribute to one of the country’s most revered filmmakers, Dominik Graf, with a special retrospective.

The 31st edition of the festival, running from Sept. 11 to 15, will spotlight Graf’s prolific career, as one of Germany’s few masters in genre filmmaking.

Graf, 71, began his career in the 1970s, inspired by American indie directors like Sam Fuller and Robert Aldrich and French auteurs such as Jean-Pierre Melville, using arthouse techniques and storytelling for crime, comedy and other genre tales.

The festival’s retrospective will showcase six of Graf’s most influential films, including thrillers Die Katze (1988) and Die Sieger (1995/2018 director’s cut), both of which have become genre-defining in German cinema and exemplify Graf’s distinctive, taut, economical approach to plot and character.

Alongside his feature film work, Graf is credited with setting new standards for...

In 1967, The Dirty Dozen fought their way into the hearts and minds of moviegoers in the classic war movie of the same name. Directed by Robert Aldrich, "The Dirty Dozen" told the (partly true) story of a dozen convicts ordered to fight for the U.S. in a secret, super-dangerous World War II mission. Among them: mobster Victor Franko (John Cassavettes), former coal miner Joseph Wladislaw (Charles Bronson), and Vernon Pinkley, played by Donald Sutherland in the role that landed him the "M*A*S*H" movie.

Character actor Lee Marvin played the general who put the ragtag team together, while Ernest Borgnine played his boss, who asked him to assemble the suicide mission that made the movie famous. All of these great actors are gone now, along with 10 of the 12 castmates who played the original "dozen." The two actors who are still with us, Stuart Cooper and Colin Maitland,...

John Wayne was initially offered the role of Tommy the Cowboy in The Frisco Kid but opted out. Harrison Ford replaced Wayne and starred alongside Gene Wilder in the Western comedy set in the 1850s Gold Rush. Ford's performance in The Frisco Kid was overshadowed by Wilder's, leading to a forgettable film despite his rising stardom.

To some, The Frisco Kid is a hidden gem from the '70s, but to many, the film is almost unheard of. Harrison Ford starred alongside Gene Wilder in the lesser-known Western comedy directed by Robert Aldrich, but before Ford was solidified as a member of the cast, John Wayne had previously agreed to play his character.

It's hard to believe that Ford and Wayne were once considered for the same role. After all, when The Frisco Kid was released, Wayne was in his late 60s, and Ford was in his 30s.

The legendary actor, Donald Sutherland, has passed on and even though his passing is something to mourn, his legacy will live on and that is something to be most grateful for. Early life Donald McNichol Sutherland was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada in 1935. Sutherland worked in several different jobs before beginning his acting career, one of them being a radio DJ in his youth. He graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in engineering and was almost set on becoming an engineer. However, he also graduated with a degree in drama, and he chose arts over applied science. And aren’t we all so glad that he did? 1960s: Career starter Sutherland's first roles were very small parts in films such as the 1965 horror film ‘Dr. Terror's House of Horrors’, starring Christopher Lee. He also appeared on the small screen doing episodes of shows such as...

The director of The Vourdalak, Adrien Beau recommends six horror favorites.

Family is the ultimate encapsulation of society. It offers us a taste of the whole world, but at a molecular level – and is very convenient if you want to destroy the world via your storytelling. The Greeks knew it with their tragedies, and we’re still using it to this day.

The tale of The Vourdalak is about how a monster can destroy their relatives from within, feeding one by one on those they love the most. In our case it’s a fatherly, patriarchal figure who has transformed into something inhuman… but the horrible threat can come from elsewhere in the family unit.

Here, I share my five favorite horror films about that very topic…

Horror Featuring… The Father And Mother

Stanley Kubrick‘s The Shining, of course, is my definitive pick when it comes to fear of one’s father.

Peter Finch won a posthumous Oscar for his uproarious performance as a swivel-eyed news anchor – a cross between Billy Graham and Donald Trump

‘The time has come to say … is ‘dehumanisation’ such a bad word?” The speaker is Howard Beale, the sweat-drenched, swivel-eyed TV news anchor in this classic 1976 satire from screenwriter Paddy Chayevsky and director Sidney Lumet, now on rerelease. Depressed by the loss of his wife and by getting fired due to dwindling audiences, Beale proclaims he will kill himself live on air and is then re-hired as a colossal popular and then populist success, his celebrity delirium turning him into a crazy prophet, telling millions of Americans to scream out of the window that they are as mad as hell and not going to take it any more. Beale is a mixture of Billy Graham, radio star Orson Welles telling America the Martians are coming, and that notorious ratings-obsessive Donald Trump.

In the "Star Trek" episode "The Galileo Seven", Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Lieutenant Commander Scott (James Doohan), and three specialists are assigned to take Enterprise's shuttlecraft, the Galileo, on a special survey to map the Murasaki-312 quasar. A mysterious spatial phenomenon pulls the shuttle off course, however, and it crash lands on a nearby world inhabited by vicious 10-foot-tall cavemen.

The seven people on board the Galileo have to repair their ship and find a way to contact the Enterprise through the signal-scrambling mists of the quasar. Their job is made more difficult by the attacking cavemen, who want to murder them with spears. The collected and logical Spock attempts to scare off the brutes, while his more emotional, human counterparts encourage deadly force. When two of the Galileo Seven are killed, Spock discourages a memorial service. The episode is ultimately about how Spock's logic isn't always...

The film industry lost another legendary actor as Hunger Games actor Donald Sutherland passed away on Thursday. Sutherland rose to prominence in the ’70s with the roles in The Dirty Dozen and M*A*S*H. However, he had a less prominent role in the former until one actor’s refusal to do a scene landed him a bigger part and the main role in the latter.

Donald Sutherland as Hawkeye Pierce in M*A*S*H | Ingo Preminger Productions

Sutherland had nearly 200 films to his name in his career and the role of Hawkeye Pierce in Robert Altman’s M*A*S*H always had a special place in the audience’s hearts. Unfortunately, the actor never received an Academy Award in his lifetime, but received an Academy Honorary Award in 2017.

Donald Sutherland Should Thank One Unexpected Scene In The Dirty Dozen For His M*A*S*H Role...

Legendary actor Donald Sutherland has passed away at the age of 88, it has been confirmed. The prolific star of the big and small screen, who amassed almost 200 acting credits over the course of a remarkable career spanning over half a century, died on Thursday after a long illness.

In a statement sharing the tragic news of his father's passing, Donald's son and fellow actor Kiefer Sutherland shared the following: "With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more than that. A life well lived."

A life well lived, indeed. Born on 17 July, 1935, in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada, Donald McNichol Sutherland graduated from...

In Robert Aldrich's 1967 World War II film "The Dirty Dozen," an ambitious army Major named John Reisman (Lee Marvin) is tasked with assembling 12 American soldiers who have all been thrown in military prison for their insubordination and tendencies toward violence. His job is to whip them into shape, as he intends to send them on a particularly dangerous mission: infiltrating a Nazi stronghold. It's easily one of the manliest films ever made, something Aldrich was good at; he also directed "Kiss Me Deadly," "The Longest Yard," and "The Flight of the Phoenix." It's a testament to Aldrich's talent that he also made famously femme films like "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?," and "Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte."

The second member of the Dirty Dozen was a character named Vernon L. Pinkley, played by the late, great Donald Sutherland. There is a scene wherein Reisman asks Pinkley -- at the last...

Donald Sutherland, one of the greatest Canadian actors of his generation and a silver screen legend, has died. The actor, who famously starred in M*A*S*H*, Ordinary People, JFK, The Dirty Dozen, Klute, The Hunger Games, and so many more, was 88.

His son, Kiefer Sutherland, an iconic actor in his own right, broke the news on X:

With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think one of the most important actors in the history of film. Never daunted by a role, good, bad or ugly. He loved what he did and did what he loved, and one can never ask for more… pic.twitter.com/3EdJB03KKT

— Kiefer Sutherland (@RealKiefer) June 20, 2024

According to Deadline, the actor died in Miami after a long illness. This is an especially heavy blow for a Canadian such as myself. Growing up, he...

Donald Sutherland, a beloved film presence for more than 50 years whose warm, rich voice was as distinctive as the regal bearing he brought to so many of his roles, died Thursday at the age of 88.

Sutherland’s agency CAA confirmed the actor’s death to the Hollywood Reporter, adding that he died in Miami following a long illness. Sutherland’s son Kiefer also revealed his father’s death on social media, writing, “With a heavy heart, I tell you that my father, Donald Sutherland, has passed away. I personally think...

Donald Sutherland, the tall, lean and long-faced Canadian actor who became a countercultural icon with such films as “The Dirty Dozen,” “Mash,” “Klute” and “Don’t Look Now,” and who subsequently enjoyed a prolific and wide-ranging career in films including “Ordinary People,” “Without Limits” and the “Hunger Games” films, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness, CAA confirmed. He was 88.

For over a half century, the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning actor, who received an honorary Oscar in 2017, memorably played villains, antiheroes, romantic leads and mentor figures. His profile increased in the past decade with his supporting role as the evil President Snow in “The Hunger Games” franchise.

Most recently, he appeared as Judge Parker on the series “Lawmen: Bass Reeves” and in the “Swimming With Sharks” series in 2022. His other recent recurring roles include the series “Undoing” and “Trust,” in which he played J. Paul Getty, and features “Ad Astra” and “The Burnt-Orange Heresy.

Donald Sutherland, the beloved actor who starred in scores of films from The Dirty Dozen, Mash and Klute to Animal House and Ordinary People to Pride & Prejudice and The Hunger Games franchise and won an Emmy for Citizen X, died Thursday in Miami after a long illness. He was 88.

The 2017 Honorary Oscar recipient also is the father of Emmy-winning 24 and Designated Survivor actor Kiefer Sutherland and veteran CAA Media Finance exec Roeg Sutherland. CAA confirmed the news to Deadline.

Related: Remembering Donald Sutherland: A Career In Photos

In some of his most well-known roles, he perfected a laconic, wry and dead-serious delivery. Such was the case for characters including the cool-headed amateur murder investigator John Klute, opposite Jane Fonda’s terrified and erratic call girl Bree Daniels in Klute; as Hawkeye Pierce in the film Mash, where he played opposite Elliott Gould’s cut-up Trapper John; and in Nicolas Roeg...

War films, from anti-war sentiments to patriotic epics, reflect the evolution of the historical motion picture genre over decades. Movies like "The Dirty Dozen" and "Black Hawk Down" offer adventurous perspectives, showcasing entertaining stories within the war genre. Films such as "Platoon" and "Dunkirk" delve into the brutal, inhumane, and hellish experiences of war, highlighting the emotional impact on individuals.

The closest that the average moviegoer can get to understanding the true nature of war is through the immersion of cinema, which is why war films are so popular, and why there have been so many remarkable additions to the genre through the decades. Only in front of the big screen can an audience experience the horrors and traumas of it, and it remains an emotionally engaging genre that continues to appeal. In the 21st century, war films generate hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, and continue...

John Wayne was initially offered the role of Tommy the Cowboy in The Frisco Kid but opted out. Harrison Ford replaced Wayne and starred alongside Gene Wilder in the Western comedy set in the 1850s Gold Rush. Ford's performance in The Frisco Kid was overshadowed by Wilder's, leading to a forgettable film despite his rising stardom.

To some, The Frisco Kid is a hidden gem from the 70s, but to many, the film is almost unheard of. Harrison Ford starred alongside Gene Wilder in the lesser-known Western comedy directed by Robert Aldrich, but before Ford was solidified as a member of the cast, John Wayne had previously agreed to play his character.

It's hard to believe that Ford and Wayne were once considered for the same role. After all, when The Frisco Kid was released, Wayne was in his late 60s, and Ford was in his 30s. At this point,...

It's easy to see why Robert Aldrich's 1967 WWII classic The Dirty Dozen is such an important film to Quentin Tarantino, not only because it is a great film, but also because the movie possesses many qualities that Tarantino has gone on to emulate in his own films, especially Inglorious Basterds. While it is a war film, The Dirty Dozen is first and foremost an ensemble piece that relies heavily on the likability of its characters in order to be successful. The movie is a refreshing take on the war genre as it doesn't rely on the audience having a previous investment in the war at hand, and instead makes you care about what is happening by developing its characters and building a solid story from the ground up.

After a seven-year break, FX’s anthology series “Feud” is back with another installment of rivalry and gossip titled “Feud: Capote vs. The Swans,” telling the story of Truman Capote (Tom Hollander) and a high society New York City socialite group known as The Swans, which includes Babe Paley (Naomi Watts), Slim Keith (Diane Lane), C.Z. Guest (Chloë Sevigny), Lee Radziwill (Calista Flockhart), Ann Woodward (Demi Moore) and Joanne Carson (Molly Ringwald). The previous season of the Ryan Murphy docudrama that starred Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis nabbed 18 Emmy Award nominations and two wins. Let’s look back at their haul to see how it may impact this current season at the 2024 Emmys.

Here are the 2017 Emmy wins and nominations for “Feud: Bette and Joan”:

Best Limited/Movie Non-Prosthetic Makeup (Won)

Eryn Krueger Mekash, Makeup Designer

Robin Beauchesne, Assistant Makeup Department Head

Shutchai Tym Buacharern,...

The title is the worst thing about this lively, fun and largely true World War II adventure The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which is inspired by the Damien Lewis book of the same name but extending it to add: How Churchill’s Secret Warriors Set Europe Ablaze and Gave Birth to Modern Black Ops.

Guy Ritchie has taken this story of an illicit black ops crew, mostly of the prisoner variety, who with the permission of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rory Kinnear) was commissioned and put into action (a ragtag group of warriors if ever there was one) in order to sink, as it were, Nazi Germany’s U-boats operation that had been preventing the U.S. from entering the war in Europe.

Ritchie has been on a roll of late with 2019’s The Gentlemen (now a Netflix series), and a pair from last year, the terrific Afghanistan War-set The Covenant,...

When screenwriter A.I. Bezzerides was asked about the complex layers of meaning running through his adaptation of Mickey Spillane‘s classic crime novel “Kiss Me Deadly,” he denied having any conscious intention of exploring the post-wwii anxieties that gave the film its jittery core. “People ask me about the hidden meanings in the script,” he told an interviewer. “About the A-bomb, about McCarthyism, what does the poetry mean, and so on. And I can only say that I didn’t think about it when I wrote it . . . I was having fun.” Bezzerides may have been just “having fun,” but in the process, he and director Robert Aldrich crafted one of the greatest noirs of all time, an apocalyptic detective story that looks into the heart of 1950s America and sees annihilation.

It’s one of several stone-cold masterpieces written by the novelist-turned-screenwriter, whose work is being properly acknowledged by the...

Like most areas of the entertainment industry outside of acting, casting and costuming, television writing was generally one big boys club until women began making (incremental) inroads during the 1990s. There were trailblazers like "I Love Lucy" scribe Madelyn Pugh, but that trail was walked far too infrequently for far too many years.

Anyone who possessed a conscience knew this was unacceptable, which is why it's disappointing that a politically progressive (particularly for his era) writer like Rod Serling never made a concerted effort to work at least one female writer into "The Twilight Zone" mix during the series' five seasons (which stretched from 1959 to 1964). To be fair, Serling did adapt the work of women for certain episodes; in fact, a tale that many consider the show's finest half-hour, "Time Enough at Last," was based on a short story by sci-fi/fantasy writer Lynn Venable. But he never managed to...

“Drive-Away Dolls” is an audacious lesbian road movie inspired by such Kings of the Bs as John Waters and Russ Meyer. Two young women (Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan) rent a drive-away car without knowing there’s cargo in the trunk that could get them in big trouble with a gang of criminals. Sure enough, thugs are soon chasing them down America’s highways.

Luckily, just about every man in the movie is a bumbling idiot. And not everyone keeps their head.

“Drive-Away Dolls” is the definition of ribald. These girls are as randy and on the make as any of their “Porky’s” counterparts. The movie wears no pretensions. It’s not going up for Oscars. It’s coming out in February, for Chrissakes!

To help promote the movie, filmmakers Ethan Coen — who accepted the Best Picture Oscar for “No Country for Old Men” back in 2008 with his usual creative partner,...

Mickey Gilbert, the fearless stunt performer who jumped off a cliff for Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and doubled for Gene Wilder in films including Blazing Saddles, Silver Streak and The Frisco Kid, has died. He was 87.

Gilbert died Monday of natural causes at his home in Camarillo, California, his oldest son, Tim Gilbert, also a stunt performer, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Early in his career, Gilbert was a horse wrangler in William Wyler’s Ben-Hur (1959) and a bank robber in Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969). Years later, he took the lumps for Lee Majors’ Colt Seavers on the 1981-86 ABC action show The Fall Guy.

Though they weren’t friends at the time, Gilbert and Redford were in the same class at Van Nuys High School, graduating in 1954. They got together on George Roy Hill’s Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) when Redford...

Making movies is not easy. Memorizing lines, lighting a scene, getting the perfect shot, casting the right lead, and fundraising are but a few of the trickier parts of the production process for the cast and crew. That being said, there's nothing harder than pulling off a stunt. Stuntmen regularly put their entire being in danger for the sake of the people's entertainment back at home, making it look easy the entire time. Obviously, it is not that. Thankfully, precautions are typically put into place so that these stunts can be properly and safely pulled off. But what happens when they aren't put in place and a stunt goes wrong? This was exactly the case in Robert Aldrich's 1965 survival drama The Flight of the Phoenix, starring Jimmy Stewart.

Robert Aldrich's "The Dirty Dozen" is the daddiest of dad movies. A box office smash upon its theatrical release in 1967, it was the proto-"men-on-a-mission" movie. Lee Marvin stars as a World War II U.S. Army major ordered to lead a pack of disposable military prisoners on a suicide mission to slaughter numerous high-ranking Nazi officers. The film brought together some of the most macho men on the planet to play the (not entirely) doomed soldiers: Charles Bronson, George Kennedy, Telly Savalas, and, of course, recently retired Cleveland Browns running back Jim Brown. It was a testosterone-fueled must-see that inspired three made-for-tv sequels and a load of imitators (including Enzo G. Castellari's "The Inglorious Bastards" and Quentin Tarantino's endearingly misspelled "Inglourious Basterds").

It's been homaged and ripped off so many times over the last 57 years that a straight-up remake would hardly be sacrilege. In fact, given...

Gene Wilder, an influential comedic actor, collaborated with Mel Brooks and Richard Pryor in several films, showcasing his outrageous antics and larger-than-life performances. Wilder's memorable scenes in films like "Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex" and his iconic portrayal of Willy Wonka in "Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory" solidified his place in comedy history. "Young Frankenstein" stands as Wilder's best film and a collaborative masterpiece between him and Mel Brooks, showcasing their comedic genius and visually impressive storytelling.

Gene Wilder was an extremely influential and one-of-a-kind comedic actor who appeared in a number of classic films in the 20th century. Wilder, whose real name was Jerome Silberman, became a frequent collaborator of legendary comedic writer/director Mel Brooks, starring in three of his films in 1967 and 1974. Wilder also appeared onscreen frequently with the pronounced comedian Richard Pryor, co-starring alongside him in four individual films between 1976 and 1991. Wilder...

Who doesn't love The Dirty Dozen? The original 1967 classic has lived on for decades now as one of the most badass WWII movies ever made. Its influence was immediate, seen in movies like 1978's The Inglorious Bastards, and still seen in big-budget movies like Suicide Squad. But what if you don't want a movie that's inspired by Robert Aldrich's original, and you'd rather have another true blue Dirty Dozen movie? I know that I'm not alone in thinking it's a shame that we never got a big-budget sequel, following Major John Reisman (Lee Marvin) as he ropes together another band of criminals to fight filthy Nazi scum. Well, much to the surprise of myself and fans around the world, we actually did get that sequel. We got three of them in the mid to late '80s! Now, immediately lower your expectations.

Although his name might be unfamiliar to a young generation of moviegoers, John Cassavetes was a giant in raising the profile of independent film in America. As a young man, after enrolling in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he took on small parts in films and appeared in episodic television until he picked up a camera and exploded onto the indie film scene with his 1959 film “Shadows.” From there, he went on to write and direct “Faces” (1968), which earned three Oscar nominations and eventually to 1974’s “A Woman Under the Influence,” which starred his wife Gena Rowlands (whom he met at the American Academy) in arguably her most triumphant performance. Cassavetes is such an important figure in independent cinema that every year, the Independent Spirit Awards present the John Cassavetes Award to the year’s best film that cost less than $500,000.

While he was directing, Cassavetes continued his acting career,...

Coined by Alfred Hitchcock in the late 1930s, a MacGuffin is simply a basic plot element that filmmakers use to propel a movie's story forward. It can be a device, an event, or even a person, and while it can often lazily be employed as a crutch by a screenwriter in a time crunch, there have been a number of iconic MacGuffins in cinema over the years. You have the titular Maltese Falcon, the Ark of the Covenant from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the Death Star plans from Star Wars, and Colonel Kurtz from Apocalypse Now. But, there is one MacGuffin that stands above the rest: the briefcase from Pulp Fiction.

Aside from its snappy dialogue and expertly crafted nonlinear storyline, Quentin Tarantino's Academy Award-winning screenplay for Pulp Fiction really works because Marcellus Wallace's briefcase pretty much ties it all together. Characterized by its mysterious golden glow,...

The Longest Yard is getting a new adaptation, with a new remake in the works at Paramount. The new version could potentially take a more critical look at the prison system, while still maintaining the comedic elements. The announcement of Rodney Barnes as the writer is promising, given his previous work on the sports series, Winning Time showing competency in creative works surrounding athletics.

The Longest Yard will hit the big screen again as it is remade for a second time. Starring Burt Reynolds, it was originally a 1974 film directed by Robert Aldrich. It was then remade 31 years later as an Adam Sandler movie of the same name in 2005, in which Reynolds played a coach in place of his former role as the team's quarterback.

Now, The Longest Yard is set to get yet another adaptation. According to Deadline, a new remake is in the works at Paramount, the same studio behind the previous versions.

Exclusive: The Longest Yard is getting another set of downs.

Deadline hears that another remake of the film, which originally starred Burt Reynolds in 1974 and was remade starring Adam Sandler in 2005, is in the works at Paramount Pictures. Rodney Barnes, who was an exec producer and writer on HBO’s Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty, is writing.

It comes from Gunpowder & Sky, whose CEO Van Toffler was an exec producer on the 2005 version when he worked at then-MTV owner Viacom. Toffler is producing with former MTV Films boss David Gale, who reunited with Toffler at Gunpowder & Sky and who also exec produced the Sandler version.

The Longest Yard is a prison sports comedy film.

‘The Longest Yard,’ 1974

The 1974 original was based on a story by Al Ruddy, directed by Robert Aldrich and written by Tracy Keenan Wynn. It starred Reynolds as Paul “Wrecking” Crewe, a...

Burt Young, who played Paulie in six of the “Rocky” films starring Sylvester Stallone, drawing an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for his performance in the 1976 original, has died, his daughter Anne Morea Steingieser confirmed to the New York Times. He was 83.

Roger Ebert gave Young his props for his performance in the first “Rocky” film: “And Burt Young as (Adrian’s) brother — defeated and resentful, loyal and bitter, caring about people enough to hurt them just to draw attention to his grief.” The New York Times — in an absolutely scathing, completely dismissive review of the film — nevertheless said: “Burt Young is effective as Rocky’s best friend, a beer-guzzling mug.”

Young’s temperamental, jealous but nonetheless loyal and caring Paulie Pennino was Rocky’s best friend — he would defend the Italian Stallion if someone insulted him. But he was a problematic friend who shouts at Adrian during her pregnancy,...

The iconic design of the xenomorph in Alien was meticulously developed, with the original concepts being drastically different and potentially ruining the movie. The film underwent significant changes from script to screen, including the addition of Ripley and the hiring of artists to create the final look of the creature. The original design of the xenomorph, featuring translucent skin and live maggots, would have weakened the creature's impact and detracted from the film's elegant aesthetic. Its lack of eyes adds to its otherworldly and creepy nature.

Alien's xenomorph is one of the most iconic designs in cinema history, but the original plan was for it to look very different, and it would have completely ruined the movie. Alien is considered a masterpiece of sci-fi horror, and a huge part of that is the utterly iconic look of the titular villain. Producer, Walter Hill, understood the importance of nailing the design,...

When most fans of the genre think of a Western, it's difficult not to conjure up nostalgic images of gun-slinging cowboys, dazzling damsels, tumbleweeds, stagecoaches, and ruthless outlaws. One of the most enduring and iconic genres of film and literature, there's nothing quite like a good Western to evoke an old-fashioned sense of bravado in us that comes with the people, time, and places they usually depict. It's a genre synonymous with gunfights, quickdraws, and slow burns — a time when life was cheap but being an undertaker was one of the most profitable jobs around.

Between the '40s and the '60s, this period was known as "The Golden Age of the Western." It was a time when names like Robert Aldrich, John Wayne, Steve McQueen, and John Ford carved out legendary reputations for themselves. Between the '60s and the '70s, the rise of Italian-made spaghetti westerns reinvigorated interest in the genre.